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The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, a winged, dragon-like, female lizard, decides to take up residence in the art-deco spire of the Chrysler Building, taking frequent jaunts in the midday sun to devour various hapless New Yorkers. The resulting bloody mess confounds detectives Dt. Shepard (David Carradine) and Sgt. Powell (Richard Roundtree), who are already occupied with a case involving a series of bizarre ritual murders linked to a secret Aztec cult. Meanwhile, Jimmy Quinn (Michael Moriarty), a cheap, paranoid crook who wishes to be a jazz pianist, takes part in a botched diamond heist that leads him to the creature's lair atop the building. This causes Quinn's attempts to settle down and turn over a new leaf from crime to be in vain as he decides to extort from the city an enormous amount of money in exchange for directions to the creature's nest, which houses a colossal egg.

The details of the location fall into Shepard's hands, and he leads a paramilitary assault on the Chrysler Building. After the showdown, the creature, riddled with bullets, falls onto the streets of Manhattan. Finally, Shepard also apprehends and shoots the Plumed Serpent's crazed priest as he prepares to ritually murder Quinn to resurrect his "god". In the final scene, the egg hatches as the screen fades to black.

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Roger Ebert gave the film 2 1/2 stars in his original review but was bursting with praise for Moriarty's performance. He relates the anecdote that, when movie reviewer Rex Reed met Q's producer, Samuel Z. Arkoff, Reed told him "What a surprise! All that dreck—and right in the middle of it, a great Method performance by Michael Moriarty!" Arkoff replied "The dreck was my idea."[6]